The name of the band, like all of our songs, was already out there, and I found it,” says Clari Freeman-Taylor, frontperson of Mary in the junkyard and the kind of artist-songwriter-mystic that was previously thought lost to algorithm devolution; think Leonard Cohen meets Björk on the south London DIY scene. Wielding a cello, she is sitting in a sweltering café terrace recalling that their band origin story was simply the leap of her imagination: “I was in the car with my previous band and was like, ‘Imagine if there was a band called Mary in the junkyard?’ I thought that would be a much cooler name than our band name.”

Other than drummer David Addison — currently sitting opposite her in the café — the other members were as cold to the name as they were to play any of the songs this strange girl guitarist was presenting. Yet Freeman-Taylor felt she had found a treasure, and as would become important, a visual expression was required: borrowing a letter press from her printmaker sister, she made a poster: “It had a picture of a big hand and said, ‘Mary in the junkyard — sound circus — open your mind and ears.’ I gave one to David, saying this is my new imaginary band, and we made it exist from there.”

This is important, for to listen to Mary in the junkyard is to enter an idiosyncratic, homespun world with its own mythologies, imagery and sounds. Freeman-Taylor was already playing her own songs on London’s folk scene, but when she bagged a gig at the Cavendish Arms in Stockwell, she saw an opportunity for Mary in the junkyard to enter the real world. Alongside Addison, she brought in her friend and sometime busking partner Saya Barbaglia on bass — both are classically-trained — and things came together fast. Says Addison, “We kept getting gigs. It was exciting and punky and we played silly songs.”

“We had a song called Graham the Snail,” chirps Freeman-Taylor. “It went: ‘Graham Escar- Go! Go! Go!’ We had another based on 7 Days by Craig David.”

They found a home at the Windmill, the Brixton pub that nurtured the likes of Black Midi and The Last Dinner Party, and which is currently chucking out an exciting new crop of indie weirdos that includes Man/Woman/Chainsaw and Little Grandad.

“Tim [Perry, band booker] from the Windmill really championed us,” says Freeman-Taylor. “And he does that with so many bands. He basically is your agent and links you up with a bunch of people. We were opening up for like every suitable gig at the Windmill for maybe the first six months.”

Spurred on, they toured and wrote relentlessly, and developed a sound both distinct and elusive, complemented by Freeman-Taylor’s artworks like papier-mâché set designs and a yeti costume. Last summer they set to work on their debut album, at producer Oli Bayston’s Studio Orbb in Walthamstow, and adopted a playful, experimental attitude, utilising odd sounds and homemade instruments in a manner reminiscent of Tom Waits’s, well, junkyard approach. “Saya made a skateboard slide guitar which we used on a few songs,” says Addison. “It’s a skateboard with guitar strings and a pick-up. You play it with a peri-peri sauce bottle.”

The result, released a few weeks ago, is Role Model Hermit, an exceptional piece of work which rewards repeat listening. Dreamy lead-off singles New Muscles and Crash Landing are already 6 Music favourites, but the album shows the depths of their storytelling, where Freeman-Taylor’s personal confessions are told through characters and allegory; where you’ll hear her sing about a dog called Peter, and how she’s “been feeding pieces of myself into his large and open mouth”. It is idiosyncratic music that has caused some puzzlement.

“The album’s been received as a slightly spooky haunted thing which I guess comes from the cover,” says Freeman-Taylor. “It does feel like an artefact I guess, but to us it was such a fun process making it, instinctive and energetic. We were messing about, our producer’s kids were coming in, it was a lot of fun.”

But there is that cover though, which features an old windswept hermit with a mouse on his shoulder. It turns out, he is Freeman-Taylor in prosthetic make-up. “We shot it on Camber Sands,” she says, “and it’s based on the song Mouse, about that man and the mouse, the friendship between them.”

Was it fun to be in disguise?

“It was actually terrifying, I don’t think I’ve recovered from it. Looking in the mirror and seeing an old man. It was horrible.”

“You were in character,” says Addison. “You were talking with a certain voice and calling everyone ‘nephew’”

In truth, Mary in the junkyard are most reminiscent of the great 1990s groups from legendary label 4AD, like The Breeders, Belly and Pixies, who all created similar distinct worlds full of dark folkloric tales of emotional and physical turmoil which crawl under your skin. Freeman-Taylor concedes, “I think the album offers up different tales that have a folk quality — they’re not too obvious but you can apply them to your own life.”

They are on to something, and creative momentum is moving them forward, fast. Not long after they came off a tour with Wet Leg in the States late last year, the band all moved into the same block in Deptford along with some friends, and were soon writing new songs for a second album, while working on this one’s videos and visuals on their shared rooftop.

Says Addison, “It’s a great space and our friends living there helped with the creative side of the album, building the world.”

This, of course, is the world outside of major labels — they are signed to All My Friends Records — where DIY is not so much as style as the only option. Freeman-Taylor says, “There’s so much less infrastructure from the music industry and if you’re on an indie label you’re responsible for more of your own promotion and marketing. But then it’s a good thing as well because we’ve been in charge of all the videos and all the album covers — we haven’t had label interference.”

They seem like a band discovering just how good they are, in a liminal space between their own homemade world and the bright spotlights of stardom on big stages. They talk with caution about the possibility of quitting their day jobs soon and, says Addison, “making a stable career out of it… but at the moment it’s about making rent”. Freeman-Taylor is about to move from Deptford to Brighton, saying, “The sea is calling me.” Meanwhile, Barbaglia is training to be an MMA fighter. This isn’t a group hustling record execs in the hunt for fame and fortune.

Yet Mary in the junkyard are still an imaginary band that they love to play within. They are touring in September, including a date at Heaven in London, where you can expect to hear some of the rockier new songs as well as some new visuals. “I’ve been building a large ship,” says Freeman-Taylor. “Not a real one, a sculpture. It’s like a lantern, it’s gonna be like a bright light above the stage.”

“I get really obsessed with bands where you fully invest in them, the story and the visual world,” she continues, revealing exactly why Mary in the junkyard will be enormous by the time Glastonbury comes along. “A band that can help you make friends with someone, when you’re both into this thing that’s like happening now. As much as it’s great to be obsessed with a band from the 1990s, if it’s a band that you can actually go and see now, that’s a nice thing. I’d hope we could be that for some people.”

Role Model Hermit is out now; Mary in the junkyard play Heaven on September 30

Addison: “I love the blown-out fuzzy guitars, synth bleeps and the line, ‘If I was a chimney sweep, hold me by my little feet’.”

Freeman-Taylor: “She is an amazing poet.”

Barbaglia: “A really beautiful song in its simplicity.”

Main image: Xander Lewis